Saturday, May 28, 2005

Movie #77 -- The Aviator

Title: The Aviator

Director: Martin Scorsese

Release Year: 2004

Plot Summary: A well-crafted biopic of mogul Howard Hughes.

Thoughts: An excellent biopic of genius/madman Howard Hughes. Leonardo Dicaprio was nominated for an Oscar for his work here and it's rightfully deserved. Cat Blanchett won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for her portrayal of Katherine Hepburn -- it was a shame her character didn't have a bigger role, beceause I really liked her in this film.

As always, Martin Scorsese is at the top of his game -- when the Academy is finally going to recognize him for his work is (unfortunately) beyond me. But Oscar voters do have a boner for Clint Eastwood, so go figure... Anyway...

Alan Alda is quite good as Senator Brewster, but the rest of the supporting cast: John C Reilly, Jude Law, Kate Beckinsale (her accent is HORRID in this) and (to a somewhat lesser extent) Ian Holm seemed to be phoning it on this one -- which dissapointed me a bit.

Still, the cinematography, direction, costuming, and strong performances by Dicaprio and Blanchett make this 2004's best biopic -- far better than Ray, but it's not spectacular -- it's good, but I expected more from this film. For some reason, it just didn't resonate emotionally the way I hoped it would.

Rating (0-10): 7.1

Recomendations: If you're a fan of Scorsese's work (like I am) you'll probably consider it essential. Otherwise, you would have had to have liked this film to pick it up.

1 Comments:

At 7:58 PM, Blogger Craig said...

It was pretty good, but not fabulous. And the ending was rather... abrupt.

Worth seeing, but I don't think I'd go out of my way to see it again.

 

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